{"id":2969,"date":"2012-06-26T06:00:58","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T10:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/?p=2969"},"modified":"2012-06-26T06:00:58","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T10:00:58","slug":"the-writing-mama-part-2-of-many","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2012\/06\/26\/the-writing-mama-part-2-of-many\/","title":{"rendered":"The Writing Mama (Part 2 of Many)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

There\u2019s a kind of a myth of the stay-at-home (homeschooling optional) mom as the perfect homemaker who more or less singlehandedly cooks, cleans, sews, bakes, knits, gardens, preserves her own food and creates beautiful, Pinterest-worthy<\/a> scenes of domestic bliss. Oh, and writes her own homeschooling curriculum (or at least curates the best) and teaches the kids Latin.<\/p>\n

Also, she has many babies and fits into her jeans right away and captures everything in perfect blurry edged photographs.<\/p>\n

(She may or may not make her own soap, lotion, bath salts, and lip balm.)<\/p>\n

And she writes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For all her many and varied perfections she\u2019s rewarded with sainthood and\/or thousands of fan-followers who kind of simultaneously love and hate her for being so amazing while at the same time wanting to BE her and hating themselves for not being able to come close.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s this Perfect Woman who, we think, has something to say to the rest of us. Regular women, the kind who forget to make dinner and dress kids directly from the clean clothes in the dryer, don\u2019t have it in us to write things that other people will read.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
sometimes the writing mama will ignore the mess and continue writing with poor body posture.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The truth is that life doesn\u2019t unfold in photgraphable moments and everyone, everyone, everyone has messes in their lives. Once upon a time, I idolized Edith Schaeffer and the way she woke up at 4 to pray and hike and make criossants and put fresh flowers on the table always and stay thing and look pretty and cheerfully serve her husband and children and whatever greasy hippies were passing through while managing to write whole piles of books, sew her own clothes, garden, and\u2013you get the idea.<\/p>\n

And then when her cheeky son goes ahead and writes some \u2018tell-alls\u2019 we find out that Francis Sr. wasn\u2019t all that nice to Edith, that she may or may not have been slightly unbalanced or at least partially insomniac and enabling of her husband\u2019s rageaholicism, and so forth.<\/p>\n

(This isn\u2019t to cast aspersion on dear old Edith. I think she\u2019s a bright, creative and interesting woman, and, moreover, I would be furious if my sons wrote some kind of tell-all about me while I\u2019m still alive. Point is, she had issues. AS DO WE ALL.)<\/p>\n

Which, I think, is why so many people love writers like Anne Lamott, who makes no bones about perfection and lets her unbalanced, self-absorbed nutcase flag FLY in a way that makes people feel less alone and so loved and chosen in God\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n

In other words, she offers the reader grace.<\/em><\/p>\n

But what does this have to do with the writing mama? Just this:<\/strong> your life, writing mama, is allowed to look messy. Your home is too. You CAN serve cereal for dinner once in awhile, you can and should rely on help if help\u2019s available, and your kids don\u2019t need a sanitized home nor one that looks like it would make Martha Stewart proud, because if you want to write, you should, and NO ONE can really<\/em> do it all.<\/p>\n

(If it looks like they can, don\u2019t be awed. Be concerned.*<\/em>)<\/p>\n

And think about your writing as just another part of the work YOU MUST DO.<\/p>\n

You think Ma Ingalls left off the butter churning or hoeing because one of the children needed quality time? She didn\u2019t really have that option. She had important work to do at home, so she gave that tiny girl a job, or else tied her to a picket line so she wouldn\u2019t disappear on the prairie and she did her work.<\/strong> If it\u2019s in you to write, then you need to write. Think of it as your necessary work, just as necessary as growing crops, and don\u2019t feel bad when you need to insist that the children play on their own for a while or even (heavens!) watch a DVD while you scratch something out in the fertile soil of your mind. That kind of pioneering sustains your life, too.<\/strong><\/p>\n

*none of this should be taken to mean that in order to let everyone know how \u2018authentic\u2019 you are you need to make a full confession before\/after\/during your writing. Not everyone writes in the confessional mode and, let\u2019s face it, most readers\u00a0probably don\u2019t care that much to hear all the messy details, unless you manage to make it redemptive, even if only \u2018redemption by humor.\u2019 But once upon a time I thought no one would read my writing until I had reached some authentic pinnacle of excellence or something. Somehow or other I figured out that pretty much no one has it together, even and perhaps especially those who most seem like they do.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a kind of a myth of the stay-at-home (homeschooling optional) mom as the perfect homemaker who more or less singlehandedly cooks, cleans, sews, bakes, knits, gardens, preserves her own food and creates beautiful, Pinterest-worthy scenes of domestic bliss. Oh, and writes her own homeschooling curriculum (or at least curates the best) and teaches the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2070,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2664,789,975,1167,1466,2502,2507],"class_list":["post-2969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-children","tag-edith-schaeffer","tag-frank-schaeffer","tag-homesteading","tag-ma-ingalls","tag-writing","tag-writing-with-children"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Writing Mama (Part 2 of Many)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There's a kind of a myth of the stay-at-home (homeschooling optional) mom as the perfect homemaker who more or less singlehandedly cooks, cleans, sews,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2012\/06\/26\/the-writing-mama-part-2-of-many\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Writing Mama (Part 2 of Many)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There's a kind of a myth of the stay-at-home (homeschooling optional) mom as the perfect homemaker who more or less singlehandedly cooks, cleans, sews,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2012\/06\/26\/the-writing-mama-part-2-of-many\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rachel Marie Stone\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-06-26T10:00:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/files\/2012\/06\/dsc_1294.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rachel Marie Stone\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rachel Marie Stone\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2012\/06\/26\/the-writing-mama-part-2-of-many\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2012\/06\/26\/the-writing-mama-part-2-of-many\/\",\"name\":\"The Writing Mama (Part 2 of Many)\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-06-26T10:00:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-06-26T10:00:58+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/#\/schema\/person\/c46cec1db7f3461f4f3d5289c79a2a8c\"},\"description\":\"There's a kind of a myth of the stay-at-home (homeschooling optional) mom as the perfect homemaker who more or less singlehandedly cooks, cleans, sews,\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2012\/06\/26\/the-writing-mama-part-2-of-many\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2012\/06\/26\/the-writing-mama-part-2-of-many\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2012\/06\/26\/the-writing-mama-part-2-of-many\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Writing Mama (Part 2 of Many)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/\",\"name\":\"Rachel Marie Stone\",\"description\":\"Faith, Family, Food; 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